The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and a provision medium, and more particularly to those capable of grasping the quality of communication by recognizing such quality on the basis of received information and controlling the communication quality in accordance with the recognized quality to thereby realize satisfactory communication with the stabilized quality.
It is recently observed that radio communication is in wide diffusion by means of radio LAN (Local Area Network), cellular phone system, PHS (Personal Handyphone System) and so forth.
In such radio communication, however, there exist disadvantages that a satisfactory communication quality is not exactly assured, and bit errors are prone to be caused due to some factors in received data. And in isochronous transfer, an acknowledge signal is not sent back from a receiving node, hence raising a problem that a transmitting node fails to grasp proper reception of the transmitted data.
Also in digital radio communication, some techniques are employed to reduce bit errors by increasing the transmission output in a transmitting node or by lowering the transfer bit rate. However, in isochronous transfer where the reception quality cannot be confirmed in a receiving node, there still exists a problem that the transmission output or the bit rate is not controllable optimally in the transmitting node, as an unnecessarily high output is transmitted or an unnecessarily low transfer rate is adopted for example even in case a satisfactory communication quality is actually achieved.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to attain improvements adapted for grasping the quality of communication and realizing superior communication with a stabilized quality.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus for transmitting information to and/or receiving the same from another information processing apparatus. The apparatus comprises a receiving means for receiving the information; a communication quality recognizing means for recognizing the communication quality on the basis of the information received by the receiving means; a communication quality information generating means for generating communication quality information on the basis of the communication quality recognized by the communication quality recognizing means; and a transmitting means for transmitting the communication quality information generated by the communication quality information generating means.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing method carried out in an information processing apparatus which transmits information to and/or receives the same from another information processing apparatus. The method comprises a receiving step to receive the information; a communication quality recognizing step to recognize the communication quality on the basis of the information received at the receiving step; a communication quality information generating step to generate communication quality information on the basis of the communication quality recognized at the communication quality recognizing step; and a transmitting step to transmit the communication quality information generated at the communication quality information generating step.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a provision medium for providing a program, which is readable by a computer to execute a predetermined processing routine, to an information processing apparatus which transmits information to and/or receives the same from another information processing apparatus. The processing routine comprises a receiving step to receive the information; a communication quality recognizing step to recognize the communication quality on the basis of the information received at the receiving step; a communication quality information generating step to generate communication quality information on the basis of the communication quality recognized at the communication quality recognizing step; and a transmitting step to transmit the communication quality information generated at the communication quality information generating step.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus for transmitting data information to and/or receiving the same from another information processing apparatus by isochronous packet transfer and asynchronous packet transfer. The apparatus comprises a receiver for receiving the data information by the isochronous packet transfer; a communication quality recognizer for recognizing the communication quality on the basis of the information received by the receiver; a communication quality information generator for generating communication quality information on the basis of the communication quality recognized by the communication quality recognizer; and a transmitter for transmitting, by the asynchronous packet transfer, the communication quality information generated by the communication quality information generator.
And according to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus for transmitting data information to and/or receiving the same from another information processing apparatus by isochronous packet transfer and asynchronous packet transfer. The apparatus comprises a transmitter for transmitting the data information to another information processing apparatus by the isochronous packet transfer; a receiver for receiving, by the asynchronous packet transfer, the communication quality information generated on the basis of the communication quality recognized in response to reception of the data information by another information processing apparatus; and a communication quality controller for controlling the communication quality on the basis of the communication quality information received by the receiver; wherein the transmitter transmits the data information with the communication quality controlled by the communication quality controller.
Thus, in the information processing apparatus, the information processing method and the provision medium, information is received, the communication quality is recognized on the basis of the received information, and communication quality information generated in accordance with the recognized communication quality is transmitted to consequently enable exact grasp of the communication quality.